Today, GLAD praised the Connecticut Insurance Department for issuing a bulletin directing all health insurers operating in the state to pay for treatment related to a patient’s gender transition. The bulletin is a significant step toward increasing access to critical health care for transgender residents of Connecticut, who have long been arbitrarily denied coverage for medical treatments related to gender transition.

“We applaud the Connecticut Insurance Department for this significant step to ensure that transgender people have access to life-saving, medically necessary care,” said Staff Attorney Zack Paakkonen. “First, it brings Connecticut health insurers into alignment with state and federal law prohibiting discrimination against transgender people in the health care setting. Second, the bulletin comports with the position of all of the major medical and psychological associations, which is that gender dysphoria is a legitimate medical condition with a prescribed course of effective, medically necessary treatment that should be determined by an individual’s doctor rather than an insurance company.”